Cotton Mather (1663–1728) was an American clergyman. A New England Congregational minister, prolific author, and pamphleteer, he was socially and politically influential. He was the son of Puritan clergyman Increase Mather, president of Harvard College for twenty years.
Cotton combined a mystical strain (he believed in witchcraft) with new scientific interest (he supported smallpox vaccination.) He became the most celebrated of all New England Puritans, but he is frequently remembered today for his Salem witch trials.
Born in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Mather studied at Harvard and became the most prominent Puritan minister in New England. A polymath, he reported on American botany and was one of the earliest New England historians. However, his reputation was irrevocably harmed by his involvement in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692.
Mather published 382 books, including Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft and Possessions (1685,) Wonders of the Invisible World (1692,) and Christian Philosopher (1721.) He supported vaccination for disease prevention and other progressive ideas.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Cotton Mather
Charity … is kind, it is not easily provok’d, it thinks no evil, it believes all things, hopes all things.
—Cotton Mather
Topics: Charity
The injuries of life, if rightly improved, will be to us as the strokes of the statuary on his marble, forming us to a more beautiful shape, and making us fitter to adorn the heavenly temple.
—Cotton Mather
Topics: Injury, Misfortune
Our opportunities to do good are our talents.
—Cotton Mather
Topics: Opportunity
History is the narrative of great actions with praise or blame.
—Cotton Mather
Topics: History
History is the story of events, with praise or blame.
—Cotton Mather
Topics: Blame
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